Personal computers (PCs) and the Internet are among the greatest technological achievements of the twentieth century and have arguably transformed society more, in a shorter period of time, than any other technological area.
As will be recognized, a PC is a desk top or portable device that enables a user to execute programming in the form of software applications to manipulate digital data files. A typical PC includes a central processing unit (CPU), memory, display monitor, user input devices (such as a keyboard and mouse), and other peripheral devices as desired, such as a printer, image scanner, and modem.
The Internet is a global network of computer networks which facilitates the efficient transfer of data between computers all across the world. Within the Internet is a particular “network” of linked documents referred to as the World Wide Web. These documents are typically written in Hyperlink Text Markup Language (HTML) and are accessible using a network protocol referred to as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
By connecting a PC to the Internet, a user can use browser software on the PC to quickly download and view publicly available HTML documents from all over the world. Such documents are referred to as “web pages” or “web sites” and are each assigned a unique Universal Resource Locator (URL), or domain name address, that enables the network to identify the desired page.
Internet standards relating to URL protocols are available on the Internet (see e.g., Cern RFC 1738). An example URL is http://www.heartsoft.com. As will be recognized, “http://” identifies the page as using hypertext protocol, “www” denotes location of the page on the world wide web, “com” is a top level domain name indicating the page is operated as a commercial site, and “heartsoft” is a second level domain name registered for use by the owner of the page. Subpages can branch from the initial page such as http://www.heartsoft.com/products.html. The term “products.html” is a subpage file name for an HTML document that might display information regarding various products available from the site.
Web pages typically incorporate textual information as well as graphic image files. Two of the more common formats for Internet-transferable graphic image files are Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). Image files can also be accessed on the Internet through other protocols, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP). An FTP site typically comprises a directory of image files that are listed by name and can be individually selected and downloaded on the local PC.
A user typically gains access to the Internet by subscribing to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). This enables the user to connect to the ISP (such as through a telephone line or coaxial cable line) and thereafter obtain access to the World Wide Web, as well as to send and receive electronic mail.
While the Internet has revolutionized the way in which business, education, personal finance and recreational activities are performed, the free-flow of information presents significant societal challenges as well, since a significant number of web pages on the Internet contain adult-oriented, sexually-explicit and/or otherwise pornographic text and images. Such materials are wholly unsuitable for minors, especially for young children. Indeed, it is illegal in most jurisdictions to intentionally or negligently provide such materials to minors.
The accessibility of such materials from the Internet provides significant concerns to parents and guardians who have Internet-accessible PCs at home, as well as to educators who have Internet-accessible PCs in school classrooms, laboratories and libraries. Public libraries across the country with Internet-accessible PCs are struggling with ways to restrict inappropriate content to minors while at the same time allowing adults to freely access such materials, if they so choose. Even businesses are concerned about restricting adult employees from such objectionable content due to productivity and sexual harassment concerns.
Several different approaches have been implemented in an attempt to prevent minors from accessing such objectionable content, but with only modest levels of success. Commercial pornographic sites are often password protected and require separate verification of user age before allowing full access to the site. Problems with this approach include the fact that not all commercial pornographic sites employ such an system, as well as the fact that objectionable material is sometimes made freely viewable at the opening (home) pages of such sites in order to entice adult users to subscribe to the site.
Moreover, there are many “free” private sites maintained by individuals that display objectionable content with little more than a disclaimer on the opening page that states that adult material is located on ensuing pages. These private sites often include advertising banners from commercial pornographic sites and advertising revenues are paid to the individuals based on the number of requests for the pages (or “hits”). Thus, there are economic incentives for such individuals to “disguise” their sites in order to entice unsuspecting users into selecting their sites, even if the users immediately exit once the content of the sites comes into view.
Another approach to limiting access to objectionable material involves the use of filtering techniques to examine the text of a web page (and/or the text of the associated URL for the web page) for objectionable terms that would tend to increase the probability that objectionable material is located on the site. This filtering can be provided in the form of software on the local PC and incorporated as a feature of the browser software or as a separate software application that runs in conjunction with the browser software. Filtering can also occur at the ISP level. Adults responsible for minor children (such as parents or guardians for home based PCs and system administrators for school-based PCs) can establish password enabled accounts for these children and the ISP will attempt to block the transfer of objectionable content to these accounts. While operable, such text-based filtering will not operate to prevent the downloading of objectionable graphic image files.
There is therefore a continued need for improvements to protect minors, especially young children, from exposure from objectionable, adult-oriented graphic image files. It is to such improvements that the present invention is directed.